It occurred to me that paper is very surprisingly AFTER civil service. (Imagine all the sheepskins in Beijing.) Paper should really be one of the first techs every civ should research, which will then enable civil service to become possible. Also, embassies have been known in ancient times, as politics can function with papyrus and sheepskins; so getting paper should be a priority for civilizations to maintain contact with each other.

Once everybody has paper, they can then decide whether to get civil service or onward to education, which should probably be classified as a medieval tech (Paris and Padua are just some of the few universities that are famous in medieval times, even if they just studied law, theology and "medicine").

Also, liberalism should really require printing press.

Obviously the University of Sankore will need to be moved (maybe to Education?)

(Paris and Padua are just some of the few universities that are famous in medieval times, even if they just studied law, theology and "medicine"). And of course all the universities in the Arab world, including Cordoba, Damascus, and Baghdad.

AFAIK those were quite different to universities in the modern sense though.

why such a drastic change when I can just tell Japan to give less weight to liberalism?

why such a drastic change when I can just tell Japan to give less weight to liberalism?

Well, it just makes staying in medieval times longer. (the effect of moving requiring guilds for optics had a similar effect)
Maybe England or Netherlands should have emphasis to liberalism rather than Japan.

It's not just Japan, if they don't research it someone else will. Liberalism is pretty much always researched by someone in the early 16th century, which my instinct says is too early - but it could be that this is an appropriate time to discover it, my history is not too good :)

Weirdly I have had a couple of games (with different civs) recently where I was expecting to win the Liberalism race and then I get skanked by Ethiopia of all places! :crazyeye:

AFAIK those were quite different to universities in the modern sense though.

just imagine them changing over time...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Bologna

It's not just Japan, if they don't research it someone else will. Liberalism is pretty much always researched by someone in the early 16th century, which my instinct says is too early - but it could be that this is an appropriate time to discover it, my history is not too good :)

Traditionally liberalism is thought to have been expounded by John Locke on the British side of the Channel, and the French philosophes on the French side for religion (Voltaire: Ecraser l’infame). Economic liberalism= Adam Smith.
So liberalism should truly be delayed till the mid to late 1600's (if we're playing a normal monarch game).